Ossifying Ourselves with Diversity and Variety

Posted: April 9, 2015 | Author: | Filed under: Technology | 4 Comments

Mark McDonald from Accenture used the phrase “ossifying ourselves with diversity and variety“ during his presentation at Fusion2015.

Ossifying: To become set in a rigidly conventional pattern.

I had one of these experiences at the conference. My colleagues Tom Lenz and Clare Jones joined me there. We all bring slightly different perspectives, so there is great shared learning when we can aggregate our thoughts and observations. At this conference, we decided to use OneNote in a shared OneDrive folder so we could each take notes and share them in real time.

office-419965_640Clare mostly typed on an iPad, as Tom did occasionally, too. I used a stylus to test the recently released ability to draw or write within OneNote. I also took pictures of key slides or the speaker with my phone or tablet and added them into the note. This often created a mess—different text boxes, overlapping type with handwriting, misaligned oversized photos, etc.

Mark McDonald is both a passionate speaker and he talks fast. Having difficulty keeping up, I decided to resort to handwritten notes, the old-fashioned way, with pen and paper. Then, I had to find a way to get these into our shared folder. Here is the process I developed:

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This whole situation was far more complex than anyone had intended. Was our quest for real-time notes and the diversity and variety of methods necessary? No. Perhaps our desire to always use the latest technology has become too rigid of a pattern. Perhaps a simple approach (pen and paper note taking, with everything gathered and shared at the end of the conference) would have been satisfactory. We may have even distributed the notes on paper (gasp!).

In our efforts to leverage technology 24/7/365, we need to be careful what we wish for. The latest and greatest isn’t always the shortest or fastest distance between two points.

A New Category of Device

Posted: March 20, 2015 | Author: | Filed under: Innovation, Technology | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

apple watchEarlier this month Apple unveiled the Apple Watch and made several other announcements.  Here are a few tidbits before getting to my thoughts on the watch:

  • Doing good. Apple is opening up a tool called ResearchKit for opensource development that works across platforms. They have realized that medical research could benefit from wider participation and easy (don’t need to enroll in a research project) feedback, unencumbered by the barriers of a research. A lot of feedback can be gathered from an iPhone, such as the performance of motor skills by Parkinson’s disease patients. I’m excited to see where this goes.
  • The all-new MacBook is pretty cool. New screen, new keyboard, new touchpad, new USB Type-C (one cable for everything), new unibody case, new batteries and main processor board. This is an indicator of ultraportable laptops yet to come. There’s still no touch screen, but the operating system requires a revamp first.

Now, the Apple Watch. Prices range from $349 to $17,000 (18K gold). While I’m not going to be standing in line to buy one, I do see the promise of this new category. It’s a new form factor, data tracker, small display and smart user interface all rolled into a fashion accessory. Christy Turlington was on stage to prove that point (and not much else).

Let’s recall the trajectory of the cellular phone. Motorola was on the top of their game with the StarTAC. Then, there were a series of attempts that seemed to smash together a cell phone with a PalmPilot (before the advent of the wireless internet), resulting in various clunky devices. Eventually, with the launch of the iPhone in 2007, the package of features that we now recognize as a smartphone began to come together.

There is likely to be a similar evolution with smartwatches. Who remembers the Casio models from the 1980s? Wearables have also been around a long time for athletes, and are just now coming into the mainstream. Products like Pebble Time integrate notifications with your phone and other smartphone based applications. The Apple Watch takes it to a whole new level. It’s a multifunction, multi-sensory, customizable, touch and voice enabled, interconnected, watch-to-watch and watch-to-phone device. Plus it has its own app store.

Like all new technology, it’s not going to be about the hardware (although it is pretty spiffy)—it’s going to be about how it impacts our behaviors. I believe the package of functionality and variety of different uses will be pretty compelling.

Is it like a new iPod (another escalation of an entire category brought on by Apple)? After all, who remembers the Zune or Rio portable media players? Or is it destined to go the way of Apple’s MessagePad that ran on a Newton OS platform? Only time will tell, but I wouldn’t bet against Apple on this one.

Mobile is Simply More

Posted: February 20, 2015 | Author: | Filed under: Technology | Tags: , | Leave a comment

It is easy to fall into the pattern of thinking that our mobile devices are interchangeable with other electronics. But is your iPhone really the same as your PC or MacBook Pro or even your iPad? Just yesterday, a co-worker mentioned that they had purchased laptops for their for grandchildren for Christmas. When visiting after the holiday, the grandchildren brought the laptops to show their proud grandparents they were using them. In a subsequent visit, the laptops weren’t to be found. Why? Their mobile phones could do it all. Our world is becoming mobile first.

In another conversation, this question came up: What would you give up first—your television (and cable) or your mobile device? Most people present said television. Those who said mobile device often had to think long and hard before answering.

Other than the obvious reasons of convenience and form factor, what else contributes to these devices being so indispensable? One answer is that there are combinations of features that just don’t exist on other platforms. First there are attributes of the device itself:business-582912_1280

  • All-in-one functionality. Calendar, notes, camera, recorder, weather, contacts, maps, music player, web access, etc.—it’s all there.
  • Easy to use, maintain and support. The App Store makes it a breeze to obtain new tools or content.

Most importantly, these features are combined into applications in new and unique ways. The user experience is unlike that you can get on any other platform. Here’s a recent example.

I was away from the office and forgot that I should have approved time and expense reports before heading out. Using the Microsoft Lync application on my phone, I was able to see that a colleague, Tom, was online and available. Using the voice-to-text function, I asked him to approve the expenses for me. Tom did so and then reminded me that I would still need to approve his. Darn, now what? Well, I saw that our controller was online, so I messaged him asking if he could approve Tom’s reports. Poof! In less than a minute, I no longer had to worry about the negative impact of my forgetfulness.

This combination of mobility, convenience, integration of corporate tools and the text-to-voice feature (not available on the desktop version of Lync) was and is a winner. Clearly, a good mobile platform is so much more than a replacement for something else.

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